In 2019 alone, Adam Driver sang Being Alive, his anthem of hope from Company, in the film Marriage Story Daniel Craig hummed a few bars of his Follies torch song Losing My Mind in Knives Out his biggest, Grammy-winning hit Send in the Clowns appeared to ironic effect sung by the ringleader of Joaquin Phoenix’s attackers in Joker Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series The Politician used numbers from Assassins and Jennifer Aniston and Billy Crudup duetted his bittersweet love song Not While I’m Around from Sweeney Todd on AppleTV’s The Morning Show. Sondheim’s remarkable influence across popular culture was startlingly current for an artist still working at 91.īefore the pandemic, his work was everywhere. This wasn’t only theatreland in mourning. Within moments of news breaking of his sudden death in the early hours of Friday after a Thanksgiving dinner with old friends, shocked tributes began flooding social media. In truth, not only was he both, the combination catapulted him into a league of his own. But for all the felicitousness of his work as a lyricist, he saw himself as a composer.

He coined them in his lyrics for Gypsy (1959) and Company (1970), two of his most celebrated musicals. I f you’ve ever used the phrases “everything’s coming up roses” or “the ladies who lunch”, you have Stephen Sondheim to thank.

Original soundtrack the chorus line